


Three languages, same meaning

by Ingi



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Foreign Language, Friendship, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8789737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingi/pseuds/Ingi
Summary: There's softness in the curve of his smile, and something brave and wild peeking into his eyes. Yuuri and Yuuri.  It's the first time they're one, but it won't be the last.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even ship Phichit/Yuuri, but this fic has some sort of vibe... I don't even know. This was supposed to be about Victuuri and episode 10, I swear.  
> Forgive me for this. It isn't even betaed, and I don't speak Thai, Japanese, or Russian. Hovering over the text should give a translation.

"You're going to hurt yourself if you're not careful, เขลา."

Phichit is there, leaning over the rink and looking at him with fond eyes.

It's their first month at Detroit, but Yuuri already knows he'd do anything for this boy, and that boy'd do anything for him right back. They're young and they're hopeful, and when they skate, they're light. Phichit worries, sometimes, because he understands that Yuuri won't accept being an alight candle when he can be a fire, and he still hasn't learnt how to do it without burning himself with the flames.

"I don't think you're the best to say that," Yuuri replies in broken English, slowing down and crossing his arms over his chest.

Phichit, dear, lively Phichit, just laughs and sets a careful skate on the ice, then the other, as if testing it, in a show that's entirely for Yuuri's benefit. Yuuri's reflexes are good enough, but not after freezing for so long in the rink, a triple toe-loop and a flip and an axel that's never good enough, all over and over again; when Phichit throws himself in his direction, Yuuri shrieks, slips backwards on the ice until he falls on his butt, his friend on top of him and laughing the loudest he's ever heard him right into his ear.

"เขลา," he repeats, messing Yuuri's hair.

Yuuri catches his hands.

"You're worse than my sister, 誓って," he grumbles.

"Your hands are freezing," Phichit comments. "And so is my butt."

"You mean _my_ butt. Yours isn't even touching the ice."

"Mine too. It's sympathy cold. Like when someone yawns and everyone else does too."

"That's a reflex," Yuuri chides, but together, they scramble up however they can, still much closer than would be proper for a new friend in Yuuri's homeland. He probably should mind, but he's too tired for that, and Phichit is too... Phichit.

"I thought you were a Physics major, not a Biology one."

"Neither," Yuuri replies, quietly. "Bombed the last exam, remember?"

There's considering silence, for a moment.

Yuuri is too soft, too gentle, for a world that would like to crush him into something it could swallow in a mouthful. He _knows_ that. But he's not always like that. Not when he skates, and not usually with his family or Phichit. It's like there's a better Yuuri right under his skin, a Yuuri who is bold and powerful and enciting, a Yuuri who is not to be messed with and gets everything he wants. He is not entirely sure of how to let him out.

"Let's skate," Phichit suddenly says, unfaced, eyes bright.

Well, that's one way.

They link their hands again, Phichit's warm ones in Yuuri's still freezing ones. They are solo skaters, most of the time, but not when Phichit gets that furrow between his brows, that twinkle in his eyes.

It's not about trust, although it could be. Skating with a partner tends to be more dangerous than skating alone, the razors too close to someone else for comfort, but they don't worry about that, too taken with the doubled sound their skates make on the ice. When they're alone, they're their own songs, and no one would ever dare to confuse them, for they're nothing alike, but together, they make a symphony, an entirely new creation that is nothing like either of them and yet all too familiar, like it was meant to be played, like it's always right there, playing under the surface, and their friendship brings it to life.

It's a powerful thing, for being but a month old. It should terrify Yuuri, but this, funnily enough, has never been the kind of fear that he's predisposed to.

They don't speak, not out loud, and they don't let go until their rinkmates arrive.

 

 

There's another thing they share, and that Yuuri has never had with any other skater, with any other person. Phichit, for what he's seen, does it with everyone who allows it, but not like this. Never like this.

"夜明け," Yuuri pronounces, slowly, pointing at the sky.

"รุ่งอรุณ," Phichit replies, equally slow, and grins.

Their following attempts at pronunciation are pitiful, and they don't hesitate to let the other know, but it's the thought that counts.

It's six months into their friendship. Yuuri has won two gold medals and a silver one; Phichit, a gold, a silver, and a bronze, not necessarily in that order. They have uploaded around three hundred photos of the two of them alone to Phichit's Instagram. They have skated together thirty five times, perhaps more. The words they've learnt from each other, _for_ each other, those are uncounted, but Yuuri is alright with that.

"ผมรักคุณ," Phichit suddenly says, between bites of the Tom Luad Moo that they'd got up far too early in the morning, or far too late into the night, to get, because Phichit was missing Thailand and _especially_ , he'd complained, pouting, Thai food. Yuuri can relate, and if skipping a few much needed hours of sleep to visit the real Thailand restaurant they'd never catch open otherwise was what Phichit wanted, Phichit would get it. The owners supposedly don't serve breakfast, but his friend really has the brightest, most charming smile in the world.

"Japanese food next time," Yuuri grins, although he has no idea of what Phichit has just told him and yet he _knows_ he wasn't thanking him.

"Yes," Phichit beams, knocking his shoulder. "Of course."

Then their coach arrives, and Yuuri forgets to ask what he actually meant until hours later, while laying half-dead on their respective beds after a particularly rough training routine. Phichit buries his face on the mattress and pretends to be asleep.

 

 

When he is to leave Detroit, Phichit hugs him so hard that breathing hurts his ribs, and Yuuri hugs back.

"ผมรักคุณ," his friend mumbles against his shoulder. "ผมรักคุณ, ผมรักคุณ, ผมรักคุณ."

He must have said that sentence about a hundred times by now, in seemingly random occasions, but every time he's refused to explain its meaning to Yuuri. It's uncharacteristical, for Phichit.

"あなたがいなくなると寂しくなります。," Yuuri tells him, even though he knows those are, yet again, not the words. They've been exchanging this one sentence for the entire month, getting ready for this moment. It still hurts.

Phichit shakes his head, this time.

"I'll see you in the Grand Prix," he promises, grinning. "And we'll be 勝者 then, I know it."

"We're ผู้ชนะ now," Yuuri says, and for the first time, he fullheartedly believes it.

His friend laughs, throws an arm around him to take one last selfie, his biggest weakness. Yuuri will find it later in his dash, tagged with about a thousand cheesy lines and with way too many emoticons in the description. It will probably end up making its way into the printer and on Yuuri's wall, too.

"ผมรักคุณ," Phichit repeats, squeezing his check against his as he takes the photo.

And Yuuri understands.

"大好きだよ," he replies, finally. "ผมรักคุณ."

He does hang the photo on his wall, days later. Phichit is wearing the widest, happiest smile he's ever seen him make, and for Yuuri himself, he has the look of a man seeing the light. There's softness in the curve of his smile, and something brave and wild peeking into his eyes. Yuuri and Yuuri.

It's the first time they're one, but it won't be the last.

 

 

Phichit and Viktor meet, and everything slots into place.

"Have you learnt Russian yet?" Phichit asks Yuuri slyly, raising an eyebrow in Viktor's direction.

Their competitors have just barely been able to tug him away from Yuuri. Phichit's Instagram has about twenty new and terribly embarrassing photos with increasingly suggestive tags. His friend's use of winky and heart emojis has shot up to the sky, and Yuuri's social media is already filling up with capslock messages he's stubbornly refusing to read.

It's a disaster, and if they weren't in public and Yuuri wasn't ridiculously fond of them both, the world would have to mourn its skating champion and a rapidly rising Thai skating legend.

"потихоньку," Yuuri accepts his defeat, hiding his face in his hands.

Phichit pats his head.

"ผมอยากให้คุณมีความสุข," he says. "So he'd better be learning Japanese too."

It's not really subtle, not for them, but Yuuri has a feeling Phichit intended exactly that.

"はい."

He wants to take Phichit's hand, but he doesn't.

"ทุกสิ่งทุกอย่างจะโอเคเลย," Phichit promises. Yuuri doesn't need to look to know he's beaming at him. "I can already see it. He'll have to make space in his shelves for your trophy. Maybe he'll melt one of his into a แหวนแต่งงาน, eh?"

Yuuri shrieks and slaps his arm, but Phichit doesn't stop laughing.

At the end of the night, after Yuuri has managed to get Viktor back into his clothes, Phichit just looks at them over his shoulder as he leaves and _winks_. A few hours later, the selfie from when Yuuri left Detroit somehow shows up again in his Instagram dash, now in a collage with several pictures Phichit took of the two of them with a thankfully dressed and grinning Viktor, all of it tagged with #thefamilygrows #sohappy #lol #sharingyuurinow.

Yuuri very carefully ignores Viktor liking the photo. He then proceeds to ignore Phichit's message of _Still invited to the wedding?_.

And if he happens to be smiling, Yuuri and Yuuri as one again, and if the photo happens to find itself stuck into his wallet a while later, no one has to know.

**Author's Note:**

> Remember that headcanon that's going around about Viktor melting his trophies into a ring for Yuuri? Yeah, I do too. Also, about a million of my other headcanons have found their space in this fic; it's like a headcanon salad.


End file.
